Once Upon A Time Part 1

The café was empty except for the three tables by the window. Couples having supper and coffee after a night on the town, probably after the late night show. It was a small little café along Hampden Road in the suburb of Subiaco. Old marble floors across the entire place with nice wooden chairs and tables. The kind you see in old Chinese coffee shops but with no marble tops. Antique meets new age. The old bar was now the main service area where coffee and teas are served. Part of the bar is now a display chiller for dessert and cakes. It was a nice quiet place. I often come here just sip coffee and read my novels. I love to read novels. I get carried away from reading that I end up spending the whole day here sometimes, on Sundays.That night was cold. It had not stopped raining since early afternoon. The streets were now deserted and I could still see the drizzle from the street lights beaming onto the line of cars parked just outside the café. There was jazz playing in the background. I’m almost at the end of The Kite Runner and nothing was going to stop me from finishing that book tonight. Not even Nick, the owner.

Nick was a blonde haired, scruffy looking man, like a retired surfer, with grey eyes and a strong chisselled face. His stubble blanketing his square chin and his hair just covering his eyes. He actually was a professional surfer but had to put an end to that ambition when he broke his knee in a skate-boarding accident. So, from a Cottesloe Beach hero he decided to open a café with what was left from his sponsorships and winnings to try and make ends meet. Luckily, it all worked out well. Now, he has opened another outlet smack on Cottesloe Beach, one of the famous beaches in Perth, Western Australia.

“Hey Nina, can I get another capp, please?” I ask the barperson.

“That’s number four, isn’t it?” she replies with a little smile on her face.

“I didn’t know you were keeping count! If you care for me that much, maybe I can take you out to dinner some time?”

“Nice try sweetie, but I wasn’t counting. That’s why I asked.”

We both smile and I get back to my book. She serves the coffee and tells me that she will close in an hour. I tell her that I’ll be done by then and hopefully by that time we will be having coffee somewhere, maybe my place. Better yet, hers! She shows me the finger as she turns away. I guess that means no. I check the time and it's a quarter past midnight. Then I get back to my book but my mind does not want to read. I wander into another world. I wander into the past. I wander into the depths of my soul I so often try to erase from memory. I wander into what I now convince myself is fiction. It was all my imagination, bits and pieces from all the novels I’ve been reading all these years. All rolled into one long, never ending fucked up life! I watch Nina as she polishes the glassware lined up in front of her.

Nina was a black haired girl of about twenty years of age and of Italian descent. A beautiful spectacle of a female, small oval face, green eyes and a small nose. Her dimpled smile never failed to make any of the customers feel comfortable. One of those friendly, genuine smiles. That and her naturally friendly nature is what has kept her working at the café for about two years now. Right about the time I started frequenting the place. I can’t say that she wasn’t the attraction but the food was great and the coffee brilliant, especially when she served it.

“Wanna hear a story?” I suddenly ask. It startled her out of her dreaming.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I was asking if you wanted to hear a story?” I shut the pages of my novel and put it down next to the cappuccino, still steaming from the mug.

“Sure, as long as it doesn’t end with you in my pants!”

We both chuckle. I tell her that it is nothing like that. This is a real story. The kind that makes you happy at the end and cry in the middle. It’s the kind that makes you melt when it all comes together and the kind that makes you mad when it falls apart. It’s the kind that makes for a best-selling novel that turns into a blockbuster movie.“Wanna hear it?” I ask as I take a sip from my mug with the cocoa powder coated froth.She puts the last glass down, wipes down the bar and says she’ll be there in a minute. She informs the other customers that the café is now closed. She makes herself a coffee and pulls out her cigarettes from her bag that’s been sitting under the bar all night and joins me at my table.

“This better be good sweetheart”, she says. She calls everyone a sweetheart.

“Well, you tell me after I’m done, alright?” I reply.

“I’m listening.”

The café was now empty. The lights were dim except for the ones over the bar. The sign on the door had been turned to “closed”. I finally got Nina to have a coffee with me. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t pulling some pick-up stunt. The story I was about to tell was true. I use “was” because it already happened, a long time ago, once upon a time in a land far far away…